Zach Round gets an x-ray after feeling some discomfort near the drain tube that runs from his brain to his abdomen inside his chest at the CHOC Children’s radiology department in Orange on Wednesday, August 22, 2018. He was cleared to play the next day. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

That’s all he’s guaranteed in varsity football for the last three games of the season.

On Oct. 19, when JSerra faces Mater Dei on “Senior Night,” the coach said he will put every senior in the game for at least one play.

Playing on the Varsity squad during their 49-7 drubbing of Corona del Mar, Zach Round, left, battles with the Sea Kings’ Luke Sullivan at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, August 17, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Trainer Gary Ballard helps Zach with his timing on the speed bag during workout at ProSport Physical Therapy & Performance in Rancho Santa Margarita on Friday, September 21, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Zach Round gets prepped for an MRI by radiology technologist Charles Kang at Children’s Hospital of Orange County on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A focused Zach Round heads out to the field with his junior varsity teammates to play against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round’s most recent MRI shows a dark space, lower right, where his tumor was. It has turned into a cyst but has not grown since his last appointment. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Rich Round looks at Zach’s helmet, a $900 Vicis helmet designed to reduce the trauma of impact, after the JSerra JV football game against Calabasas at Jserra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Pediatric Neurosurgeon Dr. William G. Loudon chats with Zach during an appointment at his office in Orange on Thursday, September 20, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round, center, stands with his teammates during their post-game after playing in JSerra’s Varsity football game a 49-7 victory over Corona del Mar, at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, August 17, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round catches his breath on the sidelines between plays during the Lions’ junior varsity game against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach uses a small piece of tape on his glasses to help his left eye be more dominant. Photographed after getting acupuncture and cupping treatments at Open Mind Modalities in Aliso Viejo on Tuesday, August 28, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round gets an x-ray after feeling some discomfort near the drain tube that runs from his brain to his abdomen inside his chest at the CHOC Children’s radiology department in Orange on Wednesday, August 22, 2018. He was cleared to play the next day. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round’s parents Lynette and Rich Round take a seat in the waiting room of Children’s Hospital in Orange as he gets an MRI on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. Zach has had more than a dozen surgeries after being diagnosed with a non-cancerous brain tumor. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Rich Round snaps a photo of his two sons Hayden, 16, left, and Zach, then 18, after their JV football game against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round gets acupuncture, along with gentle electric current, to help treat his Bell’s palsy at Open Mind Modalities in Aliso Viejo on Tuesday, August 28, 2018. Round has had many side effects from his initial brain surgery and hospital stay, including bacterial meningitis, hydrocephalus, kidney stones and Bell’s palsy. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Jserra’s Zach Round, center, shakes hands with Corona del Mar after the Lions’ 49-7 victory at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, August 17, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Rich Round watches from the stands as his son Zach plays football against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round gets some advice from Varsity head coach Pat Harlow, a former NFL tackle, during the Lions’ junior varsity game against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Rich Round shows neurosurgeon William Loudon highlights from his son Zach’s football game during an appointment on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. Zach is a lineman for the JSerra football team. Loudon also played high school football. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Lynette Round chats with Zach from the stands after the JSerra JV game against Calabasas at Jserra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round, center, plays in a JSerra JV game in Corona del Mar on Thursday, August 16, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Playing on the Varsity squad late during their 49-7 drubbing of Corona del Mar, Zach Round, center, looks at center Caden Blyth as they line up on the offensive line at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, August 17, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

With Zach Round’s brain scan on his computer, pediatric neurosurgeon William Loudon answers his mom Lynette’s questions on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Rich Round shows neurosurgeon William Loudon highlights from his son Zach’s football game during an appointment on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. Zach, no. 67, is a lineman for the JSerra football team. Loudon also played high school football. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round’s helmet, a $900 Vicis helmet designed to reduce the trauma of impact, sits on the ground as he retapes his fingers on the sidelines during the JSerra JV football game against Calabasas at Jserra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Hayden Round, 16, checks on his brother Zach during a JSerra JV game in Corona del Mar on Thursday, August 16, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Jserra head coach Pat Harlow, left, listens to the National Anthem on the sidelines next to Zach Round, at right, before the start of their Varsity football game against Corona del Mar at JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano on Friday, August 17, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round works out with former World Championship fighter and trainer Gary Ballard at ProSport Physical Therapy & Performance in Rancho Santa Margarita on Friday, September 21, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round, left, makes a block against a Corona del Mar player as he plays in a JSerra JV game in Corona del Mar on Thursday, August 16, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Physician assistant Tony Adkins adjusts Zach Round’s VP shunt with a device called a medtronic strata. The shunt needs to be readjusted after each x-ray or MRI. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Zach Round catches his breath on the bench between plays during the Lions’ junior varsity game against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

And still, since August, Zach Round has bashed his head through football practices and games as a junior varsity lineman. He got a couple of plays on the varsity at the end of an opening night blowout victory and a couple more in a 49-6 victory over Servite, but his prospects of playing again may come down to one symbolic opportunity.

He completes every workout, does every drill, makes every block – just like every other player. He gets no breaks, despite the trauma he has endured.

Zach uses a small piece of tape on his glasses to help his left eye be more dominant. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

He jogs onto the field with a limp. He’s 19 now, granted another year of eligibility because of his health problems. He struggles with double vision. The right side of his body doesn’t react with the strength or quickness he needs to be a more competitive varsity football player.

When you read Zach’s story, you may come to a new conclusion about toughness, about divine intervention, about how much risk a kid should take to define himself as a football player. You may be inspired by Zach’s determination, or appalled by his decision-making.

A focused Zach Round heads out to the field with his junior varsity teammates. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

You may be critical of his parents, doctors and coaches for letting him play. Or you may applaud them for allowing him to chase his dream.

“I will never give up,” said Round, and then he thinks for a second … “People are going to think this kid is an idiot.”

While some players and observers around America are frowning on football because of the game’s link to head injuries, Zach Round offers the opposite narrative.

Overcoming head injuries is precisely the reason it is so important that he plays.

“I love football,” he said, simply.

Since January 2017, when he was involved in a scary mountain biking accident, Zach has had nine brain surgeries, three kidney surgeries and one eye surgery. Inside his head, doctors inserted a shunt that drains fluid to relieve pressure on his brain.

And still, he puts on his $900 state-of-the-art helmet nearly every day and, with the permission of his neurosurgeon and lots of prayers, he hits the field.

Risking his life.

For one more varsity play.

Tough enough?

If you think varsity football is tough, ask Zach Round about difficulties in his life, and he’ll start in middle school.

Zach Round was big. Too big, several of his classmates thought. They teased him unmercifully at Las Flores Middle School in Trabuco Canyon.

“They would say, ‘Your mom’s not fat. How come you’re so fat?’” Zach said. “It got to the point where I didn’t want to go to school.”

Once, Zach got in trouble because he grabbed a smaller kid who was teasing him and slammed him into a urinal.

The biggest Zach ever got, by the way, was about 6 feet, 255 pounds as a junior in high school. In middle school, he wasn’t that big.

“He had a little pudge,” said his mother Lynette, who works in the communications department for CalFire based in Riverside. “I wasn’t going to keep him in that element.”

For high school, his parents enrolled him at JSerra, a couple exits south on the 5 Freeway, just to get him around a new group of people. Eventually, Lynette and Rich Round moved their family to San Clemente, away from the bullies.

In high school, he fell in love with football.

Zach Round, left, makes a block against a Corona del Mar player as he plays in a JSerra JV game. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

In football, being big was a good thing.

The question was, did he have that other thing you need in football: fortitude?

JSerra coach Pat Harlow, a former NFL lineman, wasn’t convinced Zach had the toughness to make it as a varsity player at JSerra, where the Lions play in the Trinity League, arguably one of the roughest leagues in the nation.

“My first impression was … good-sized kid, but he’s not very tough,” Harlow said. “He would get banged up on the football field. And he would take himself out. I was thinking, either he has zero pain tolerance or a ton of pain tolerance.”

Zach kept working.

And he made himself into a pretty good lower-level football player. He became a backup offensive guard on the JV team. As a junior, he was chosen JV Lineman of the Year.

In the varsity team’s playoff game against powerhouse Corona of Centennial, another lineman’s facemask busted. So Zach was sent into the game for more than a couple plays. JSerra lost that game, but Zach won enough individual battles on the field that night to catch the head coach’s eye.

“The light bulb went on,” said Harlow, who starred as an offensive lineman at USC, was a first-round NFL draft pick and played for the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders. “Zach had a really good game. That made an impression on me.”

Suddenly, college football dreams entered the heads of Zach and his parents.

Rich Round shows neurosurgeon William Loudon highlights from his son Zach’s football game during an appointment. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Accidental discovery

What is life without risk?

“When you complete the dangerous stuff, it gives you a sense of accomplishment,” Zach said.

On Jan. 16, 2017, two months after playing the best football game of his life, Zach and his buddies took their mountain bikes to San Clemente’s single tracks near San Onofre State Beach. It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a school holiday.

Zach’s goal that day was to jump the utility road. He wore a GoPro camera atop his helmet, and he said a little prayer.

“Dear God, watch over me while I do this,” he whispered into the wind. And God, Zach said, heard his prayer – although in a way Zach never would have expected.

The video he made is pure daredevil insanity. He’s rolling fast on the trail, then the bike goes airborne … then chaos as the camera flips and falls. All you see at the end is blue sky and power lines like a still photo. The video can be seen at pinkbike.com in the “Fail of the Month” video section.

The phone rang at Rich Round’s office in Costa Mesa.

“Dad, I crashed. I’m hurt. I can’t move.”

Rich ran to his car.

Zach’s rear tire had hit a berm in the dirt. He had smashed his head on the ground, cracking his protective helmet. He had to be airlifted out of the marshy land.

Here’s a list of his major injuries from the crash:

None.

Hours later, when he was in the Mission Hospital emergency room, Zach and his family laughed because he had only suffered a few scrapes and bruises. There were no broken bones. There was no major bleeding. Not even a stitch was necessary.

The little prayer appeared to have been answered.

And then the doctor said he needed to speak with Zach’s parents.

“This is not going to be good,” Lynette remembers thinking.

She was right.

In checking Zach’s head after the crash, doctors found a large tumor – called a ganglioglioma. It was the size of a golf ball, resting at the base of Zach’s brain stem. A ganglioglioma is very rare and slow-growing. It’s not cancerous, but it could be lethal.

Loudon thought he could excise the tumor with surgery and focused radiation.

“I was more positive,” Loudon said. “But in no way has this been a walk in the park.”

The whole accident experience left the Round family believing that God had intervened. If Zach hadn’t crashed and the tumor hadn’t been discovered, he might not have lived to see 18.

“He was lucky to get in that mountain bike accident,” Lynette said. “It was a blessing.”

His father’s advice was a little more succinct.

“You’ve been dealt a crappy deck,” Rich said. “Deal with it.”

Dangerous complications

Had a brain tumor been his only obstacle, Zach Round might be completely recovered by now.

Surgery, hospital stays and treatments often have side effects.

“There were multiple other bumps in the road,” said Loudon, choosing words that sound almost funny when describing a kid involved in a mountain biking accident. “Zach’s health is kind of a Pandora’s Box. One problem opened the door for another.”

It wasn’t long before Zach contracted bacterial meningitis, a life-threatening swelling of the membranes surrounding the brain. And then hydrocephalus, a build-up of fluid in the brain cavities.

And then kidney stones.

There were unexplained fevers, mysterious infections, blood in his urine and projectile vomiting.

Then Zach’s kidneys failed. He developed Bell’s palsy, a drooping of his facial muscles.

At one point, his mother thought he was going to die.

“I just wanted him to make it through the night,” Lynette said.

Zach kept fighting to stay alive, and to get back on the football field. While he was in Children’s Hospital of Orange County, five other children in nearby rooms died.

Zach lost more than 50 pounds. He has had 47 MRI scans and 13 surgeries.

‘Who am I to tell him no?’

And still, he wanted to play football.

Even when he was sick and hurting, Zach Round would get up early. Sometimes 6 a.m. He would do footwork drills, physical therapy, weight lifting. He took a boxing class.

Trainer Gary Ballard helps Zach with his timing on the speed bag during a boxing workout. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

He took the field as a JV player and wore a Vicis helmet, which is designed to reduce the trauma of impact. The helmet’s outer shell flexes and recoils like a car bumper. Vicis also has a contract with the U.S. Army to design combat helmets.

He plays in the JV games and is in uniform for the varsity games, where he mostly stands on the sidelines, praying for a chance to play.

He still has most of those health problems – double vision, right side weakness, pressure buildup on his brain, Bell’s palsy. And he continues to play through them.

Against Corona Del Mar, with his team ahead 49-7, Zach ran onto the varsity field for the first time since the accident.

“I got a little teary-eyed,” Lynette said.

Here’s what Zach thought: “This is going to be a good Instagram picture.”

No one could question his toughness anymore.

He made a list of small colleges where he could play football: Puget Sound, Ripon, Rochester, Wooster, Aurora. All small universities, perfect for a kid who just wants to play. He’s going to send them video.

“I’m not going to skip my dream just for a head injury,” Zach said. “I’m going to live every day how I want to.”

His parents have cried with Zach and celebrated his small accomplishments. He had to learn how to tie his shoes again, and write his name and use a spoon and fork with his right hand.

His parents were worried about him returning to football.

But they saw that football was what motivated him to get up at 6 a.m. for workouts. Football, it seemed, gave him life. They are not pushing him to be on the field.

They are pushing him to chase what makes him happy.

“I worry about him all the time,” Lynette said. “But you have to let your children do what they love.”

Coach Harlow knows what it’s like to come back after major surgery. Thanks to football, Harlow is a walking anatomy lesson.

Zach Round gets some advice from Varsity head coach Pat Harlow, a former NFL tackle, during the Lions’ junior varsity game against Calabasas. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Harlow’s had 19 surgeries including a neck fusion. He has had surgery on his back (three times), both knees, both elbows and both ankles. And several others.

Harlow has had a defibrillator and a pacemaker implanted in his chest. He suffers from ventricular tachycardia, a racing heartbeat. He is determined not to let medical problems take him away from what he loves.

Upon hearing that Zach wanted to return to the field, Harlow’s first reaction was no.

“Are you kidding me?” Harlow said. “I love the game, but it’s not worth dying for. There is no way this is a good idea. This is a horrible idea.”

But Zach Round is not his son. As soon as Zach passed tests for balance and strength, Loudon cleared him. Zach’s brain surgeries, Loudon said, do not add to his risk on the football field.

“It’s not my place to tell somebody how to live their life,” Loudon said. “Zach and his family are so committed. He is so intent on playing.”

Loudon said he made the decision to clear Zach only after a “verbal contract” and a handshake with Zach and his parents. They all agreed to the decision together.

“His whole life revolves around him playing football,” Loudon said.

After football season, Zach Round is planning to play rugby. The first rugby practice is Oct. 29, and Zach has another brain scan set for just before the start of the practice schedule.

He hopes he will be cleared to play.

Rich Round snaps a photo of his two sons Hayden, 16, left, and Zach, then 18, after their JV football game against Calabasas at JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, August 23, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Keith Sharon started at the OC Register in 1985. He's covered sports, education, cities, investigations and general assignment stories. He was one of the reporters on the 2005 Pulitzer finalist series "Toxic Treats." The Register has sent him to the Middle East (for a series on life on aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf), China (for the opening of Shanghai Disneyland), New Orleans (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) and San Francisco (for the World Series when the Angels beat the Giants). He has written two screenplays that have been made into films: ("Showtime" with Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy and "Finding Steve McQueen" with Forest Whitaker and Travis Fimmel). He lives in Trabuco Canyon with his wife Nancy, and three children -- Dylan, Alison and Trey.